Altenew Inspiration Challenge

 Alcohol Ink and Swiping Techniques with Altenew Inks!

Hi all!

What platform do you have your blog or website on?  I've been having issues with Blogger taking down posts...I'm a card-making site for goodness sake.  What guidelines could I possibly be breaking??  It may be time for me to look into other places for hosting...any suggestions?  In the meantime...hopefully, this post won't get taken down!  

It's the first time in a LONG while I've been able to play along with Altenew's Inspiration Challenge!, and I even have 2 cards!  I went into 2 different directions with 2 very different techniques for each card.  First up, a 'literal' interpretation of the photo image.

This started with a Bristol cardstock.  This type of cardstock doesn't absorb the inks very quickly, so blending is easy, and swiping is even easier!  A bazillion different inks were used to create this background.  In the order you see here, each color was swiped in the area shown in the inspiration photo.  After each different color group was added, a quick swipe with a mini blending tool was used to soften the swipe marks if there were any.

Next the panel was trimmed down and die cut using the Dotted Waves cover plate.  The stencil was then used to deepen the colors in the open areas and Stickles in Crystal was added to the lines to make them sparkle like waves at sunset.

Next, the sentiment from Inspiring Quotes: Sunshine was heat embossed with white powder on vellum.  Finally, the whole panel was added to a piece of dark gray cardstock and some yellow sequins were added for extra sparkle.

For the second card, I decided to FINALLY break out some alcohol inks!   Using permanent markers on acetate with rubbing alcohol was a technique I used often in my teaching days, but fluid inks?  Nope.  I've had a stash for quite some time, but have not educated myself on the technique of using fluid inks.  I decided to just jump in with both feet with a little rubbing alcohol, Sunkissed, Orange Cream and Firebrick alcohol inks.

Some leftover SU! glossy paper in my stash is the panel base, but not sure it's really the best choice as it did seep through to the back side of the paper.  Is that normal?  Either way, it seemed to work well enough, so it will be used for this technique until it's gone.  It took time to figure out how to get the inks to move without creating lines, after some trial and error....lots of error....it worked in the end.  A little bit of Nimbus ink was added for some splatter at the end to help bring in the color deep gray-blue color from the florals.  

I couldn't get over the intensity of the color!  No wonder this medium is so popular!  The gorgeous Craft-A-Flower Hibiscus die set was used for the florals.  They were die cut from gray card stock with details added with the Tranquility alcohol markers.  The edges of the blossoms were highlighted with some Cloud White Fresh Dye Ink on the edges.

There is nothing better than a die set with included sentiments, which this one has!  To give the sentiment some interest, the 'for my' was die cut from vellum paper, while the 'friend' was die cut from matching gray cardstock.

Whew!  Thanks for continuing on with me!  Have a colorful day!